Resolutions
by SacredRoseDream
Summary: Love makes us blind, especially to the truth. This is particularly true for Tomoe. A oneshot shedding light on Tomoe's sudden need to become human.


**Disclaimer: ****I do not own Kamisama Hajimemashita.**

******A/N: This one-shot is subject to editing. Wasn't 100% happy with the flow of this piece. Feedback very much appreciated. **

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**Resolutions**

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This! This was not the woman he knew. Not his Yukiji, not at all. This woman snarling at him as though he were a stranger, eyeing him with such a chilling unease─this was not his Yukiji! Yet… she smelled the same. The same delicate peach he so recognized. _Only_…spicier, he thought, fuller, thick with the scent of the perfume rubbed into her skin and the sharp tang of human male.

All at once it hit it. _She must be with child! _There was no other explanation for it. No other notion he could comprehend for the subtle changes in her scent. All at once he felt betrayed. Where was the woman who had promised him she would be his bride? Where was the Yukiji that lay with him so sweetly? That loved him so intently?

She had betrayed him! Betrayed him for that human husband! Anger rose in him, hot and savage. It sharpened his claws, pointed his teeth, his eyes taking on an inhuman cast. "_How,_" he growled, the words jangling harshly in his throat, "how could you do this?! _Yukiji!_"

She only scoffed at him, raising her chin imperiously as she gazed at him in all her finery. Her eyes somehow colder, more sharply angled, than he could recall. His body trembled with the force of restrained emotion from where he perched on the railing of her home, waiting for an answer. Needing one.

Her lips pursed, as she crossed her arms beneath the many folds of her dark blue _kosode_, the short sleeves reminding him she was a _married_ woman. "Did you think," she stated regally, "I would truly marry a demon?" Her eyes narrowed. "A _demon_ like those that destroyed my home!" Her teeth bared in a mockery of a smile, and she looked at him, her eyes cold, colder for the light of the half moon above them, shedding its pale light on her so that the shadows seemed longer, her features sharper. A mockery of the Yukiji he knew.

He swallowed. His heart was in his throat, his tone begging. "_Yukiji!"_He jumped down, moving towards her, attempting to grasp at her arms, so unyielding. Knowing he could force her, too fearful of the damage he might do should he try. "_Yukiji, you promised! You promised to be my bride!" _She turned her face away, her shoulders stiffening, innumerable thoughts shifting on her face. When she opened her eyes next, it was with a forced resolve and a sense of painful resignation.

"_Perhaps,_ I promised," she intoned as though the words were like knives on her tongue. "_Perhaps_, I loved you." She looked at him then, full on, her eyes searing into his, so different, yet so similar to how they had seared before. "But do you think a demon could give me the family I _crave_? The family I _deserve_?" She tore herself from his grip. "I would be an outcast. Hated by all humanity. My children would be _abominations_!" She spat the last fiercely, condemning him. Condemning them. "Here" she motioned to shoji doors half-open behind her, drawing his attention to the grandeur of the structure. "I am accepted. I have a home. A stable future and a human man who adores me. There would be nothing with _you_."

His heart was breaking. The beating of it rising higher, a furious drumming in his ears. Breaking, until her voice was distorted beneath the blood rushing through his veins. He called at his chest. Feeling as though he was drowning. Dying. _Yukiji! Yukiji! _

Why? Why?! Had he deluded himself of her affection? Had he only imagined that she had accepted a demon like himself?! But no! It could not be. He had the hair pin. Her precious hair pin with which she promised to wed him.

"The hair pin," his voice came out soft, too soft. He repeated it. "The hair pin." He swallowed, reaching into his kimono to the pocket where it lay over his heart and presented it to her as she stiffened and stared at it in shock. "I still have it. I haven't lost it." He looked at her, his eyes wild, pained, and burning with a fevered desperation. "I'm still keeping our promise, Yukiji. If-" he stumbled, running a hand through his hair repeatedly, lending him a wild, crazed look."If-if you want I'll build you a castle. Grander than this! I'll give you the stars in the sky. Just ask for it!" He choked back a sob, refusing to cry before her. "Your child, I'll take him." His voice was rising with hysteria. "We can raise him together! If you need-" the words were like glass in his throat, "if you need another man to give you children" he continued thickly kneeling before her and one hand grasping her kimono, "I will raise them too. _Please_," he bowed his head before her, blind to the pinched expression on her face and the fine trembling of her arms. "_Please Yukiji!_"

Suddenly, he felt a wetness on his skin. Was he crying? He touched a finger to his eyes. No. Not yet, though his eyes burned. He looked up shocked.

"Yukiji." He breathed, reaching for her. Yukiji was crying, her body shuddering and her face broadcasting confusion and shame. And her eyes. They looked torn, so torn, raging with a storm of emotions in those dark, dark depths. Tentatively, hesitantly, she touched him, her fingers cold against him, as she stiffly drew her arms about him. And touched by the action, he pressed his face into the fabric of her kimono, fighting the urge to sob in her arms as she had done to him seasons ago.

If anything, this made her more uneasy, and he could feel her fingers gripping him almost painfully. Such a stark difference from the gentility she had shown him before. Why? Why was she acting like this? Why was even her comfort so cold?

"_Demon_," She bit out, her voice raspy and strained. He glanced at her through eyes blurred with unshed tears. Her face was pinched, those beautiful lips curved in a harsh frown. Why? Why did she look so unhappy? Had he really made it so? "I am not the person you think I am." Her fingers on his shoulder dug in harder, hard enough to bruise, and he fought a wince. "I am _not_ the woman you have made me to be."

The confession seemed ripped from her throat, but all he could hear was a discordant whine in his ears. Was she really denying him so thoroughly? Was she really telling him she cared nothing for him? That the tenderness and kindness she showed him had been feigned? "_Yukiji!"_ He groaned as though in great pain. "How could you─"

"_No_!" She hissed softly, then repeated it, louder, shaking him. "No! Do not say my name! It is not yours to say! Whatever woman you believe me to be I am not!" Those dark eyes seemed to burn with an untold agony and hatred, so unlike the eyes that had gazed at him so lovingly. The loss of it was staggering, bitter agony stealing his breath and leaving him dazed.

"Please," he begged tugging at her kimono. "Don't abandon me!"

She swallowed, that pale throat working, and arms trembling. "_Demon_," she rasped. "I will tell you this only once more! I am _not _yours! I have _never_ been yours! I will _never _be yours! I would_ never_ befoul myself by lying with a_ demon_! Much less _love_ one!" With each word, the kitsune's heart fell deeper, a sickening lurch that left his mind numb. "Go," she growled, her tears falling faster, and shoved him from her. "Leave! I will not suffer your presence any longer!"

He stumbled, righting himself on the railing. Yet he couldn't accept it! Wouldn't! There had to be something! Surely she couldn't feel this way? "Yukiji," he breathed, grasping her hand when she tried to push him again, tightening his grip when she tried to reclaim it. "What if…" A thought churned in his head. Forbidden. Dangerous. "What if I weren't a demon?" He whispered. His red-rimmed eyes giving those grey orbs an unearthly cast. "What if… I were human? Would you be with me then?"

"Human?" She echoed incredulously. "What nonsense!" She scoffed, but he could see a spark of interest in her eyes. Hope was renewing in his chest, a tiny light in the darkness that had descended over him.

"But what if I was?" He implored.

Yukiji looked at him assessing, a finely-shaped brow raised. "_Perhaps," _she conceded_. _"If you were human. You might make a fine husband." She shook her head. "But you are not. It is useless to dream of it."

But she was wrong. It wasn't useless. There was a way. There had to be a way.

He just had to find it.


End file.
